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		<header>
			<h1>Coursework continues</h1>
			<p>Day 00713: Friday, 2017 February 17</p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/02/17.jpg" alt="Black mondo grass" class="weblog-header-image" width="800" height="480" />
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		The base station for the Crown of Voices went down again.
		This time though, I was able to spot the problem because I knew what to look for and where the base station was even located.
		Like before, it had simply come unplugged.
		I had something else that I wanted to say about work today, but I don&apos;t recall what it was.
		I was so sure that I&apos;d remember that I didn&apos;t even write it down.
		Oh well.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		My <abbr title="Ethics and Social Responsibility">PHIL 1404</abbr> reading assignment for the week is as follows:
	</p>
	<ul>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s10-01-the-resume-introduction.html">The Résumé Introduction</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s10-02-what-am-i-worth.html">What Am I Worth?</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s10-03-plotting-a-promotion.html">Plotting a Promotion</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s10-04-looking-for-a-better-job-outsi.html">Looking for a Better Job Outside the Company</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s10-05-take-this-job-and.html">Take This Job and...</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s10-06-case-studies.html">Case Studies</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s11-01-taking-advantage-of-the-advant.html">Taking Advantage of the Advantages: Gifts, Bribes, and Kickbacks</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s11-02-third-party-obligations-tattli.html">Third-Party Obligations: Tattling, Reporting, and Whistle-Blowing</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s11-03-company-loyalty.html">Company Loyalty</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s11-04-stress-sex-status-and-slacking.html">Stress, Sex, Status, and Slacking: What Are the Ethics of Making It through the Typical Workday?</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org./books/business-ethics/s11-05-case-studies.html">Case Studies</a>
		</li>
		<li>
			<a href="http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/rethinking-company-loyalty">Rethinking Company Loyalty - HBS Working Knowledge - Harvard Business School</a>
		</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
		I haven&apos;t yet completed the readings, but I wrote up my initial discussion post for the week:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			It could be said that if Intel really wanted their information kept secret, they&apos;d be more careful with it.
			I mean, when Pani informed Intel of their departure, Intel should have noticed that their vacation time took all of their remaining employment time with the company, if the vacation time was scheduled first.
			If the termination of employment was scheduled first, then Intel should have noticed when the vacation time was scheduled.
			In either case, Intel should have realized that Pani had no further need of clearance, and Pani&apos;s clearance should have been revoked.
			Arguably, you could say that the blame rests with Intel, not Pani, so Pani did nothing wrong.
		</p>
		<p>
			Depending on your moral framework and values, it may or may not matter whether Pani was a key author of the copied documents.
			If you feel that copyright is a reasonable legal construct (I don&apos;t), <abbr title="Advanced Micro Devices">AMD</abbr> held the copyright to those documents.
			<abbr title="Advanced Micro Devices">AMD</abbr> basically paid the authors of the documents both to write them and to hand over the copyrights.
			To some people though, authorship might grant someone some non-transferable right to the works.
			As for me, I don&apos;t believe that knowledge and information can be owned.
			Again, that means that authorship wouldn&apos;t matter to me, as I believe that information should be available to everyone, author and non-author alike.
		</p>
		<p>
			The article says that many people do what Pani did.
			Does that make it justifiable?
			That depends again on what moral framework and set of values that you&apos;re working with.
			If this practice is widespread and believed to be moral by those doing it, you could say that it is believed to be appropriate in that subculture.
			That means that according to that subculture, yes, it&apos;s a justifiable action.
			Those outside that subculture may very well disagree though, as they&apos;re using a different moral standard.
			That is to say, whether or not it&apos;s justifiable depends on who you ask.
		</p>
		<p>
			Did Pani have a responsibility to terminate their employment with Intel before joining <abbr title="Advanced Micro Devices">AMD</abbr>?
			That again depends on which moral framework and values you&apos;re basing your judgment on.
			Whose interests need to be taken into account?
			Once more, that depends on which moral framework and values you&apos;re basing your judgment on.
			For example, if judging based on egoism, only Pani&apos;s interests need be considered.
			If judging based on utilitarianism, <strong>*everyone&apos;s*</strong> interests must be considered.
			Using the ethics of care, Pani would need to consider everyone that they have a relationship with, including Intel, <abbr title="Advanced Micro Devices">AMD</abbr>, and their life partner that still works at Intel.
			It could be argued that Intel&apos;s interests don&apos; t need to be directly considered because that relationship is ending, though perhaps Pani would still need to indirectly consider Intel&apos;s interests because of their relationship with their parter that works there still.
			Personally, I think that the ethics of care are a horid set of ethics, but they make a great example of how different ethical systems will provide you with different sets of people to be concerned with.
			Personally, I try to maximize human prospering, so I think that everyone that can foreseeably be affected needs to be considered.
			It&apos;s hard to say whether I think Pani should have terminated their employment before joining <abbr title="Advanced Micro Devices">AMD</abbr>, as in theory, that alone wouldn&apos;t hurt anyone.
			Had Pani just not touched their old work at Intel, there wouldn&apos;t have been a problem.
		</p>
		<p>
			I&apos;m having trouble forming an opinion about Pani&apos;s actions.
			The fact is, I don&apos;t feel that this information should be secret.
			Trade secrets such as these are a huge part of what holds us back technologically as a society.
			Each company is effectively having to reinvent the wheel to keep up with one another when they could instead be sharing information and instead compete on production efficiency.
			If they worked together, they could build on one another&apos;s discoveries and not have to waste time on discovering solutions to the same problems that have already been solved several times.
			That said, Pani didn&apos;t make this information available to the general public.
			They didn&apos;t solve the problem of hoarded knowledge, they just brought the information to a single new company.
			Because of that, I don&apos;t think that their actions were overly positive.
		</p>
		<p>
			That said, I don&apos;t believe that knowledge and information are property.
			As such, the concept of &quot;stolen intelligence&quot; is an oxymoron to me.
			I don&apos;t think that taking Intel&apos;s data was immoral, at least not directly.
			What Pani did wrong was violate the trust of both Intel and <abbr title="Advanced Micro Devices">AMD</abbr> by abusing their technically-continued employment.
			Having two companies with this knowledge turns the monopoly into a duopoly, which is a little better, but I feel like Pani wasn&apos;t trying to help anyone but themself.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		The last two paragraphs were written because I got the case study that we&apos;re using for the discussion assignment and the case study that we&apos;re using for the learning journal mixed up.
		Instead of outright deleting what I&apos;d written, I tweaked it a bit to make it fit with the rest.
		I&apos;m also assessing the reading material as I complete it as my <a href="/en/coursework/PHIL1404/#Unit4">learning journal assignment</a> for the week.
	</p>
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